This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Democratic institutions awaken and foster a passion for equality which they can never entirely satisfy.
We may naturally believe that it is not the singular prosperity of the few, but the greater well-being of all that is most pleasing in the sight of the Creator and Preserver of men. What appears to me to be man’s decline, is His eye, advancement; what afflicts me is acceptable to Him. A state of equality is perhaps less elevated, but it is more just: and its justice constitutes its greatness and its beauty. I would strive, then, to raise myself to this point of the divine contemplation and thence to view and judge the concerns of men.
Beauty | Contemplation | Equality | Greatness | Justice | Man | Men | Prosperity | Wisdom | Contemplation |
Eager and apprehensive men of small property constitute the class that is constantly increased by the equality of conditions. Hence in democratic communities the majority of the people do not clearly see what they have to gain by a revolution, but they continually and in a thousand ways feel that they might lose by one.
Equality | Majority | Men | People | Property | Revolution | Wisdom |
The inner and unconscious ideal which guides [the parents’] lives is precisely what touches the child; their words, their remonstrances, their punishments, their bursts of feeling even, are for him merely thunder and comedy; what they worship, that it is which his instinct divines and reflects.
We are impelled by a hidden instinct to reunion with the parts of the larger heart of the universe.
All the great – the permanently great – things that have been achieved in the world have been so achieved by individuals, working from the instinct of genius or goodness.
It is… the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different.
Morality is herd instinct in the individual.
Individual | Instinct | Morality |
Nations will rise and fall, but equality remains the ideal. The universal aim is to achieve respect for the entire human race, not for the dominant few.
Equality | Human race | Nations | Race | Respect | Will | Respect |
Even scholars of audacious spirit and fine instinct can be obstructed in the interpretation of facts by philosophical prejudices.